Friday, September 12, 2008

I was wandering around the campus bookstore, looking at the required reading for classes that I wish I could take, and I ran across this:

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

It's a graphic novel about a young Iranian girl coming of age during the revolution. She was old enough to start in a French school before the crackdown began, so she tries to figure out who she is right as others begin enforcing the religious laws.

Anyway, it's just wonderful. I ended up buying it and reading it last night (and the second volume, which is just as good).

There is supposed to be a movie out too, and it looks pretty wonderful. I think that's going to go on the old netflix queue

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Alright, So I got a Tivo not so long ago, and let me just say that yes, I love it. Yes, it's wonderful, and yes, I don't think I'll ever had a TV without one. Right? Right. Ok. Now then.

What is the hell are all these ads doing all over my Tivo? Most of them are just menu items like the stupid Land Rover one that's been there on my main menu forever (If Tivo knows so much about me that it can record things I like, it should not that there's no way in the world I'd buy a Land Rover even if I could afford one).

Then there's the 'would you like to participate in marketing surveys for our commercial partners' one. Well, no. no, I wouldn't.

But those, as awful as they are, are pretty ignorable. Nothing too egregious. This morning, I wake up and look through to see if any of the AFI top 100 movies were added overnight (very cool service that), and the little antanaed black box decided that I needed to watch an infomercial. I thought for sure it was a mistake. Maybe I accidently hit the record button before I went to bed. Nope, there was even a title to the infomercial saying that this infomercial was specially prepared for Tivo watchers.Thanks Tivo, Thivo. (You really need to watch that clip, and perhaps many more from the "Look Around You" series, like I did, wasting an entire morning.)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

So here we go with an attempt at stream of consciousness blogging. Only got a few minutes before I need to be on the bike headed to campus though, so let's all gather together and let our bars low.

I did finally get the last bit of my dental maintenance work yesterday. I discovered that since I am actually in town over the summer and I do actually have insurance (The guy in the commercial has it right - it's not really insurance, it's more like a coupon for X% off - and my X was pretty low. Can someone explain why we still don't have a national health plan again?), and since I actually do have enough cash to pay for it, I might as well go in to the dentist and get things taken care of. A root canal, two crowns and a replacement of all my old fillings later, I'm a new man. Or at least an old man with some new teeth.

I'm pretty happy with the results really. I think I prefer my fake teeth. I'm not sure what the benefits are to real live teeth. Why not get them all knocked out and get new ones put in? Anyway, I no longer have those metal fillings, so my teeth are actually a kind of uniform shade of yellow. Hooray for modern science. Also, I never understood that dental work really is supposed to be without pain. My new dentist actually made sure I didn't feel any of the work. wow, eh?

hmm... dental work. Not a very thrilling post, but a post is a post, and hopefully I'm back on my way to being a functioning blogger.